


This Person, This Place

by Barkour



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Bluepulse Bash, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-21
Updated: 2013-03-21
Packaged: 2017-12-06 02:22:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/730497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Barkour/pseuds/Barkour
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Freed from Reach control, Jaime struggles with the reality of the two months he was on mode.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Person, This Place

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: The first two sections necessitate a couple content warnings, namely 1) violence/gore and 2) a character vomits. 
> 
> This was written for Bluepulse Bash, Day #5: "Apocalypse."

Ash came down like snow; a crosswind carried it so that the ash fall drifted hard to the left. The wind moaned in the way wind did when it pushed between high rises. The city was empty. No one was there to pull coats closed at the throat against that chill. No one was there at all.

He stuck his hand out to catch flakes on his fingertips. His hand was huge and black like ink, and there were white spots on his finger tips, like he’d caught snow instead of ash. The sky was very dark. For winter to continue like this, the stratosphere, that highest and stillest layer of Earth’s atmosphere, must be thick with sulfide aerosols.

“You must have thought about this a lot,” said Bart from somewhere below.

Jaime looked down. His own foot was enormous; he didn’t recognize it and then he did. Pinned beneath the crushing force of that boot was Bart. Jaime had got him by the throat, and the whole of it had ruptured, the skin split and the bones sticking out like thorns. Blood spattered out from Bart’s broken throat, his torn lips when he smiled up at Jaime. His goggles were cracked. Glass had pierced the left eye.

“Told you,” Bart said. “You should have listened to me, hermano.”

A flake of ash rested delicately on the bloodied corner of Bart’s mouth. More settled over his eyes, filling in the spaces left where the glass had shattered.

“No,” Jaime said, “this wasn’t me, I didn’t do this,” but none of this came out from his mouth. All of it was in his head. None of it was real.

His hand rose. He watched as the armor swelled, ballooning to form a plasma cannon. He knew the shape of it. He knew what it could do to concrete at close range. Bart’s eyes stared up at him, the one eye pulp, the other pupil blown and specked with ash. Bart was grinning. A tooth jutted through his lip. The cannon charged.

“Stop,” Jaime said. He didn’t say it. His body was no longer his body. There was nothing he could do. There was nothing. His arms would not budge. The foot that had smashed Bart’s throat ground in deeper. Vertebrae splintered.

“Stop!” Jaime shouted. “Stop! You have to listen to me—I’m telling you to stop! Scarab!”

“Down low,” said Bart brightly. “Too slow.”

The cannon fired. Jaime could not close his eyes. He saw the pulse. He saw the gush of bone and brain spill across the street. The blood was warm enough it melted little runnels through the ashy snow. His arm dropped. The cannon retracted.

“Hey,” said Bart’s ruined neck, “you tried. I won’t hold it against you. It’s not your fault the world’s on mode. Just because you couldn’t stop it.”

Jaime lifted his foot. It only took one stomp to bust in Bart’s chest. The cavity burst like an overripe melon. The heart had already stopped. He popped it under his heel. Bart didn’t say anything after that. Neither did Jaime, though he tried. He pulled his foot out. Ash fell into the hole Jaime left, each flake a grey spot like disease.

Blue Beetle left him there in the dead streets of downtown El Paso. The wind was still howling; it rattled through the skeletal remains of the high rises, cleaved so they stood like jagged teeth, metal beams and shattered windows left exposed. Jaime was howling, too, but that didn’t seem to matter.

*

“You were dreaming,” said Khaji Da.

Jaime continued breathing through his mouth. His forehead burned, even against the cool porcelain of the toilet. He’d run out of things to vomit, even bile. His gut clenched again anyway, and he closed his eyes against the intensity of that cramp, like his ribs were caught in a vise. Nothing came up. After a moment, the spasm passed.

“That future is no longer possible.” Khaji Da was calm. “You know this. Why do you continue to worry about it?”

“Not right now,” Jaime said, rasping. His eyes stung. He was afraid to cry. “Please. I don’t want to think about this.”

Fumbling blindly for the handle, he flushed the toilet again. Some few drops of water spattered his face. The water was cold, too, and not at all like blood. Bart’s neck, when it snapped and then ruptured, had sprayed blood over Jaime’s leg. He hadn’t felt any of it. Now he did.

Jaime clutched the mouth of the toilet and tried again to vomit.

Milagro was pounding on the bathroom door. “Jai- _me_ , I gotta _pee!_ Stop pooping!” She pounded again.

“Give me a minute, okay!” he yelled, and he coughed on the last of it. His throat was hoarse and his own breath pricked at his mouth.

“I don’t got a minute!” Milagro shouted. “I gotta pee now! Let me in!”

Then his mother was at the door, too, testing the door knob. “Jaime, are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” he said. “I’m almost done. I’ll be out in a minute! Tell Milagro to wait.”

“Are you sick?” Mom asked. He could hear her hand on the door and Milagro whining indistinctly, too far now from the door. “Not now, Milagro. I thought I heard you throwing up, baby.”

He got up on his feet and lowered the toilet seat. Vomit had specked the linoleum on the right side of the toilet, by the tub. Ripping a length of toilet paper from the roll, he scrubbed that up, tossed it into the toilet, and flushed again.

“I wasn’t throwing up,” Jaime said. He flipped the faucet on and rubbed at his mouth, trying to get it to look clean. “I’m coming out, okay? Tell Milagro she doesn’t have to yell.”

He left the bathroom with his face turned down, eyes lidded like he was still sleepy. His bedroom was just across the hall. Once he was in, he could just lie back in bed and pull the sheet over his head and pretend he was sleeping in like any teen on summer break.

But as Milagro said, “ _Fi_ nally,” and slammed the bathroom door shut behind her, Mom caught Jaime by the elbow.

“Jaime,” she said, “don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not,” he said, looking her right in the eye. “Mom, I’m not sick—”

She touched his cheeks, his brow, with the back of her wrist. “Well, you know the bug’s going around at the hospital. It’s all right if you’re sick, Mister Tough Guy.”

Gently he took her wrists and lowered them. His mother was a few inches shorter than him, and she had to look up to meet him. He’d been proud of that distance once; he’d thought it meant he was a man or just about. Now he wished he were a kid again and that his mother was kneeling to pull him up into her arms.

“I know it’s all right,” he said. “I’m not embarrassed. I’m just not sick.”

Mom frowned all the same. “I just don’t want you going to work with your father this afternoon if you’re not feeling well. He won’t either.”

“I’ll be fine, I promise,” Jaime said. “I’m not going to throw up in somebody’s truck while Dad’s checking the engine.”

She rested her palm on his jaw. Her fingers were worn and warm.

“I just want you to be okay, baby,” said Mom. “You’ve been out of it a while.”

Two months, he wanted to say. Instead, Jaime just took a shuffling half-step forward and put his arms around his mother and hugged her. Mom made a little startled gasp, and her hand came up off his cheek then down on it again.

“What’s that for?”

“I don’t know,” said Jaime. He squeezed his eyes shut. In his dream El Paso had been empty and dead. “I just love you, I guess.”

“I love you, too,” said Mom, and she kissed Jaime’s cheek like he was still her little boy. Then she sniffed at him and said, “Jaime, you smell like—”

The bathroom door opened. Jaime slipped out of the hug he’d started, and Milagro, swaggering out of the bathroom, said, “I’m done. If you still gotta poop.”

“Did you wash your hands?” Mom demanded, turning to look at Milagro over her shoulder.

Milagro executed a neat U-turn and went back into the bathroom. The faucet turned on.

Mom said, “Jaime—”

“I’m gonna go back to bed,” he said, backing up.

“Jaime!”

He paused in his room with his hand on the door. “Mom, I’m not sick,” he said. “I’m not gonna lie to you.”

She was frowning. Her nose wrinkled under her glasses. “If you need something to settle your stomach—”

“I’m fine. My stomach’s fine, too,” he said.

“I washed my hands!” Milagro announced. She stuck her arms out at Mom. “You wanna smell ‘em to make sure?”

Jaime closed his door. His bedroom was bright, lit with morning; the sun had come up a couple hours before and his window faced east. Mom and Milagro were still talking in the hallway, and Milagro laughed. She had a laugh that made Jaime smile, even if he was alone in his room. Even if his mouth still tasted like puke.

His sheets were rumpled. A pillow had fallen to the ground; he’d knocked it off the bed in his sleep. “Making sure you stayed a hero was the main reason I came back to the past,” Bart had said. Jaime thought of blood, staining his boot, and blood, melting through snow as Bart’s heart broke under Jaime’s foot.

Jaime went back to bed.

*

Alpha team provided a simple protective detail for a Quraci delegate traveling through Bialya to Saudi Arabia. An attack was, if not expected, a possibility. The delegate had close ties to the president of Qurac; he was a first cousin, and a tempting target. The delegate boarded the plane in Al Kuwait. So did Superboy and Jaime. Miss Martian flew in camouflage beside the plane, while Bart kept pace on the ground.

The flight was uneventful. Mostly, aside from watching the passengers from the back seat in case one of them got up to maybe try to hijack the plane, Jaime stared out the window and imagined he could see Bart running through the clouds.

“Bet I beat you there,” Bart had said to Jaime. He’d winked.

Jaime eyed him. “What are you betting?”

“The pleasure of my company,” said Bart.

Jaime could have done with Bart’s company on the plane. Usually they were paired together on missions. Now, Jaime sat alone with an empty seat beside him. Probably Bart would have elbowed him or slung an arm behind Jaime or maybe even fallen asleep on Jaime’s shoulder like he had that time when they were staking out a warehouse. Jaime traced initials on the window. J, R. B. They didn’t show, but he still wiped them away with his thumb.

On the Bialyan border, just outside Iraq, the plane began dropping altitude in preparation for landing.

“Guess we lucked out,” Jaime said to the rest of the team through the link Miss Martian provided.

“Speak for yourself,” Bart replied. “Do you have any idea how boring it is running in the desert? Plus I’ve got sand in my shoes and it’s really itchy.”

“Don’t get comfortable,” Superboy said. “As soon as you get comfortable that’s when things start happening.”

Bart went _ha-ha-ha._ “’Cause sand is so-o-o-o-o comfortable.”

“Speak for yourself,” said Jaime, folding his arms behind his head and leaning back. “I’m feeling pretty comfortable up here.”

“Warning,” said Khaji Da to Jaime. “I am detecting an energy spike at—”

Then the engines exploded. After that, things started happening very quickly. The plane tore through the sky toward the ground. Jaime suited up. Air was rushing out a hole blasted in the side of the plane. Air masks dropped. A woman in the seat across the aisle from Jaime didn’t see her mask drop. She was praying in Arabic. Khaji Da translated: _oh, my God, please be with me_ —

Jaime grabbed her air mask and she opened her eyes. In the moment before she lost consciousness, she tried to draw breath to scream. His face, ink black and framed in blue with eyes like embers, reflected in her glasses. He got the mask fitted to her. His hands were steady, but the tail of her head scarf was pulling up as they all fell together.

“The plane’s too heavy,” Miss Martian was saying, “I need support now or these people are going to die.”

Superboy was already out the rip, so Jaime started down the aisle to the cockpit. Debris was being sucked out that hole, and a man near it was struggling. His tie, pulled to the hole, was choking him. Thinking quickly, Jaime planted his feet on either side of the rip and pushed back while his arm shifted into a torch; he welded the metal together.

“How long will that hold?”

“Approximately twenty seconds,” said Khaji Da.

Jaime rocketed into the cockpit. Both pilots were slumped over at the controls. One of them had vomited blood. He didn’t have time to check more than whether they were breathing; they weren’t. Kicking the door shut and locking it – he didn’t ask how long that would hold, because he knew it wouldn’t – Jaime turned, aimed, and blew out the windshield.

“Ground forces,” Bart yelled. “Like twelve tanks down here. Some weird guy with his brain sticking out, oh, gross!”

Jaime flew out the front of the plane – the earth was rising rapidly, and he could make out small but growing dots that had to be the tanks Bart was talking about – then reversed, caught the nose, and pushed.

“I’ve got the tanks,” Superboy said. “Try to get as many of the soldiers unarmed as you can, and _stay away from Psymon!_ ”

“No problem,” Bart said, “he’s super mondo creepy. He’s giving me the willies. What’s a willy anyway?”

“Ese,” Jaime grunted, “you don’t even want to know. And I’m not gonna tell you.” Then, out loud to Khaji Da, he said, “I need, like, ultimate boosters right now.” His boots flared.

“Would you tell me if I gave you a bag of Chicken Whizees?” Bart asked. “I don’t have any money so you’d have to buy them, but I’d let you eat all of them. Most of them.”

“That’s real tempting,” said Jaime, “and surprisingly generous for you.”

“Think of it as a token of our friendship,” Bart suggested. "It means I like and respect you, as a person."

"A person who gives you food."

"Hey," said Bart, "that's my favorite kind of person."

The plane was still plummeting forcefully to ground. To Khaji Da, Jaime said, “I need something stronger than this!”

“How much stronger?”

“Whatever’s right under scorching the earth,” Jaime yelled. “That’s how much stronger!”

The force of the blast made his teeth ache, his ribs too. The nose pushed into his chest, and Jaime struggled with it, the plane trying to force him down so his legs would come up and he would curl around the nose, but the rocket boosters too strong for his legs to do that. His back began to hurt.

“Oh, man,” Jaime said, “I really don’t want to be a bug on a windshield.”

“Keep that up,” said Miss Martian. “I can adjust the plane’s degree now. Superboy, Kid Flash: we’re going to fly the plane over the Bialyan border into Iraq and land as soon as it’s safe. I’ll send you the coordinates when I have them.”

“But we just got started!” said Bart.

“No  rush,” Superboy said. “These tanks are nothing. I don’t think Bialya’s upgraded in five years. It’s like ripping tissue pa— _KF!_ ”

Something like shock – like a phantom pain, almost, something he felt but that wasn’t really there – ripped through Jaime. His breath stuck.

“Bart,” he said. “What happened to Bart? _Bart!_ ”

Jaime looked back over his shoulder. The tanks and gathered ground forces were still little more than splotches, but with zoom, he could make out fire, four tanks that had exploded, and tiny pinpricks of light that signified gunfire. Jaime thought: _Bart,_ and _no, no,_ and _I have to help him_.

The plane was slowly evening out as Miss Martian guided it, and Jaime adjusted his hold to keep his feet to the ground. He couldn’t let the plane go. If he let go, everyone on board would die. He knew how it would happen, how the cabin would snap at the point where it had weakened, how the nose would crumple as a cannon shell hit it. No kill like overkill.

“He’s still alive,” Miss Martian said. “I’m still connected to him. But you need to get him out of there now, Superboy. Psymon—”

“I got him,” said Superboy shortly. “I’m going now. Keep that plane out of firing range.”

“What happened to him?” Jaime asked. “Is he—” Thinking, he didn’t say. He didn’t know how to say it.

“He’ll be fine,” said Miss Martian. “Whatever Psymon did to him, I can fix. We need to get this plane into Iraq now.”

Jaime didn’t let go.

*

“He’s fine,” Miss Martian said to Jaime outside the Watchtower’s medical bay.

The windows were clear, so that they could see into Bart’s room. Flash was by Bart, holding Bart’s hand. Bart was making a face and rubbing at his head like he’d only tripped. He had tripped, but only after Psymon had struck out at him psychically. The bruise on Bart’s forehead was already a sickly green, nearly healed and nearly gone.

“You sure?” asked Jaime. He stuffed his hands into his hoodie pocket where he could clench them without being seen doing it. “I mean, you’re one hundred percent sure he’s okay, that Psymon didn’t, like—damage his brain?”

Miss Martian smiled kindly. “I’m sure.” Then her voice went deep and hard. “I have a lot of practice fixing things Psymon has tried to break.”

“Did he? Break Bart, I mean.”

Jaime looked through the glass. Bart saw him looking and waved, and the little lopsided cast of Bart’s smile was the same crooked turn he always gave Jaime. He felt that smile like a knife in the gut. Like a boot in the chest.

“No,” said Miss Martian, “he didn’t. When Psymon tried to get into Bart’s mind, he felt mine, too. And he’s afraid of me.”

She said this softly. The way she said it, calmly and with pride but also shame, was nearly as strange as what she’d said. Jaime couldn’t imagine anyone being afraid of Miss Martian. His reflection was very faint in the glass; he was lean and dark and geeky-looking, and he slouched. He hadn’t been able to imagine anyone being afraid of Jaime Reyes either.

“You were very worried about Bart,” Miss Martian said.

Jaime swallowed. “Yeah. He’s my friend.”

Very lightly, Miss Martian touched Jaime’s shoulder. Her fingers were long and they tapered at the ends. She said, “Psymon has hurt people I care about, too. People I love very much.”

His heart beat like something trapped in a jar. Love. He skirted the thought. Superboy had shown up at the coordinates with Bart slung over his shoulder, and Bart had been limp like the dead.

“He’s not the only one who’s hurt someone,” Jaime said. He hadn’t meant to say it. He looked away from his reflection.

Miss Martian said, “Maybe you should speak to Black Canary. She’s helped Superboy a lot over the years. Maybe she could help you.”

“Help me with what?” Jaime asked.

“What you’re afraid of,” said Miss Martian.

*

“Where do you put all that stuff?”

Bart slurped down the last of his noodles and grabbed his fountain drink. “Put what stuff?”

“All the food you eat,” Jaime clarified.

He’d almost lost interest in his own sesame chicken just watching Bart scarf down about five meals of mall-worthy Chinese food, but when Bart eyed Jaime’s plate, Jaime made a point of eating two pieces. The chicken was cold. It stuck in his mouth.

“Hyper metabolism?” Bart suggested. “And it’s not like we had any of this where I come from. We had Reach pills. They tasted like socks.”

 _Where I come from._ Bart was very careful never to say _in the future_. That future didn’t exist anymore, Jaime reminded himself. If Bart weren’t sitting across the table from Jaime in the food court, Jaime could have believed that future never existed.

“But if you think I’m a big eater,” said Bart, moving on to his side dish of white rice, “you should see Wally eat.” He stumbled on that last word: _ee, eat_.

Jaime looked down at his plate. The orange sauce had pooled under the chicken; it was nearly reddish in the food court’s light.

“Here,” Jaime said. He pushed his plate to Bart. “You can finish it. I’m not hungry.”

“Really?” Bart lit up. “Dude! How crash are you! Are you sure you don’t wanna eat it?” He’d already picked up a piece with his fork, but he paused to look at Jaime.

“Nah, I don’t need it,” said Jaime. “So you don’t have to give me those puppy eyes.”

“Puppy eyes?” Bart asked around a mouthful of chicken and white rice. He swallowed.

“You know,” Jaime said. He made circles around his eyes with his fingers. “Like, big, wet eyes all sad. Like you’re gonna die if somebody doesn’t feed you.”

“I won’t die,” Bart said, very casually. He was engrossed with savoring the last of the food. “You always feed me.”

In Jaime’s experience, fast food that went cold tasted like garbage. But Bart smiled over every bite, like even this microwave heated meat was something wonderful.

“Well,” said Jaime. He folded his arms over the table and leaned against them. “You better appreciate it. That’s all. Because you’re eating up my summer money.”

“You don’t have to feed me,” Bart protested. “I can eat on my own!”

Jaime shrugged. “I don’t mind eating with you.”

“That’s ‘cause you’re so rad,” said Bart. He smiled at Jaime. “Thanks for buying me lunch. You wanna chill-hang at the arcade next? I’ve got a bunch of quarters. Joan didn’t want me to play any video games after the thing with my head, but I’m all crash now.”

“Yeah,” said Jaime. “That sounds all right.”

Bart licked his fingers clean and stood to throw the trash away and recycle their trays. “Be back in a flash,” he said, and he was, just a moment later. Jaime didn’t even have time to miss him, to watch him go. Bart was just there again, stretching and saying, “Hope you’re ready for me to wreck you, hermano!”

Another time maybe Jaime would have said something like, “You think you can go up against me?” He didn’t say that now.

*

“I heard you wanted to talk to me,” said Black Canary.

She closed the office door behind her. Like all rooms on the Watchtower, this office was clean, austere, the walls gleaming metal.

“Yeah,” said Jaime. He sat in the chair nearest to the door and slouched.

“Superboy told me you asked him to ask me. You could just ask me yourself.” Black Canary smiled as she took the other chair. “So. What’s this about?”

Jaime fiddled with his fingers, hidden in his pocket. The air was very sterile. It chilled his nose. He was glad he’d remembered to put on a hoodie before coming to the Watchtower.

“Jaime?”

“I messed up,” he blurted. “I wasn’t thinking so I did something stupid, and because I did something stupid I almost ruined everything.”

“How did you mess up?” she asked. “From what I hear, you were very good last week. If you hadn’t been there, a lot more people would have died.”

He shook his head. “Not about that. About—” He hesitated.

“Ah,” said Black Canary. She folded her hands together over her knees. “This is about the Reach. And the scarab.”

“It’s just.” He struggled to find the words for it. “I keep thinking about how the world almost ended because of me. Because I trusted Green Beetle and I didn’t think about what I was doing because I just wanted to get Khaj—the scarab out of me. I was stupid.”

“You didn’t do anything ‘stupid,’” Black Canary said firmly. “And you’re certainly not stupid, Jaime.”

“But two months,” he said. He pointed to his breast. “Two months, I was walking around and the Reach was doing stuff with my body – making people think they were the good guys – and I was in there and I couldn’t stop it. And it wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t let the Reach get back into my body.”

“We were all fooled by the Reach,” she countered him. “We all believed Green Beetle’s story. Jaime, Miss Martian felt just the way you do now because she was too afraid to probe his mind any deeper.”

“But it’s still my fault!” He cradled his head in his hands. “It’s because of me. And Bart—you know, he came back from the future. He came back to stop me, because in his future, I’m the one who did it. I’m the one who destroyed everything. Me.”

“The Reach,” said Black Canary. “Not you. What the Reach did when they had control of the scarab, they did. Not you.”

“They wouldn’t have had control if I hadn’t given it to them.”

“You were tricked.”

“Because I messed up,” Jaime said to his wrists.

“No,” said Black Canary, “because they used you.”

He dug his fingers into his hair, his nails into his scalp. He couldn’t say anything else. His gut ached.

“Do you know Red Arrow?” Black Canary asked. “Five years ago, the Light used him to get access to the Watchtower. They took control of his brain. That wasn’t his fault, either.”

“Did he let them in?” Jaime asked. He still couldn’t lift his head. “Did he let them take control? I haven’t talked to Tye since he got back to El Paso. What am I supposed to say—it wasn’t me? When I almost killed all those people at STAR Labs, I couldn’t control myself? Tye’s heard that crap before.” Heard it from his mother excusing Maurice when Maurice started beating on Tye.

“Jaime,” said Black Canary. “You have to forgive yourself. No one here judges you. No one hates you. Your friend Tye doesn’t hate you.”

Jaime tightened his grip. “And Bart,” he said. “You think Bart forgives me? Where he comes from, I’m the bad guy. I’m why he had to come back. Because I let the Reach back into my head. And Wally—he died because I didn’t pick up that twenty-first MFD.”

“Wally chose to sacrifice himself to save the world,” said Black Canary. “Just like you were ready to sacrifice yourself.”

He shook his head. Kept shaking it even as Black Canary said, “And if Bart is upset, and I don’t think he is, it isn’t because of you. It’s because of the Reach.”

“I keep dreaming that I’m hurting him,” Jaime whispered. He was staring at his feet. Long, but not big. He wasn’t wearing boots, just old sneakers with fraying shoelaces.

“Because you’re afraid of hurting him,” said Black Canary. “But Jaime—you wouldn’t hurt him. You wouldn’t hurt anyone. We’re all still here because you did pick up the MFDs.”

“Wally isn’t,” said Jaime.

Black Canary sighed. She was quiet then. They were both quiet. Then, at last, Jaime lifted his head.

“My parents don’t even know I’m a superhero,” he said. “My sister. What if they think—because the Reach was making me say and do that stuff to make people like the Reach—what if they think I’m, that I—”

“Tell them,” said Black Canary.

“I’m scared,” said Jaime.

“It’s all right to be scared,” she said.

He breathed out, then in. Out again. His throat stung. He was chilly, sitting there in that cold office on the Watchtower.

“Jaime,” said Black Canary gently but without giving, “you have to take these chances.”

“Okay,” he said. “Okay.”

*

So Jaime called Tye. When he’d finished telling Tye, he said, “I know it sounds like bullshit.”

The phone line crackled. “I believe you.”

“You do?”

“Man,” said Tye, “you know what the Reach did to me? They fucked a lot of us up.”

Jaime leaned against his bed’s headboard. The wood was hard against his shoulders. He didn’t mind it.

“Why you telling me this over the phone?” Tye asked. “Did you think I wasn’t gonna talk to you if you just showed up at my house?”

He had thought that. Now, Jaime bowed his head a little and said, “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” said Tye. “You’re always feeling like you aren’t doing enough for everyone. But I’m taking care of myself, all right? And you’re my friend. That’s all you got to do for me.”

“If I’d gotten to the station sooner,” said Jaime at last, but Tye cut him off.

“That’s not your fault. You want to blame someone,” said Tye, “blame Maurice. Hey—I heard you’re the one who got him in jail. That’s what Maurice told Mom anyway, but she says he’s a lying asshole.”

“Your mom said that?”

“Yeah,” said Tye. “She says she’s done with him. And I think she means it. She doesn’t answer any of his letters, just burns them. Asami thinks Mom’s some kind of badass.” But he sounded proud.

“You guys okay?”

“We’re cool,” said Tye. That was how Tye said things like _we’re happy_. “Mom likes Asami, and Asami’s getting good at English. How’d you get Maurice in jail?”

“I’m a superhero,” said Jaime. “It’s just my job.”

“You bust that asshole,” said Tye, “you’re sure as hell a superhero. Hey—you wanna come over tomorrow?”

Jaime smiled and said, “Yeah. That’d be crash.”

“Crash?” said Tye.

*

Jaime was in the medical bay, standing over Bart. Bart was pale, his skin ashy, and he was naked under the thin hospital sheets; he was naked and dead and his eyes were closed, his eyelids bruised. Psymon had killed him. Jaime knew this the way you know things in dreams. It was just true.

“I’m sorry,” Jaime said. He touched Bart’s cheek with his fingertips. “I wanted to save you. I should have saved you. It’s my fault.”

Bart’s eyes were open. The sheet slowly fell in, as if his chest was gone. His heart had burst like a balloon. Jaime had pulled it out and stepped on it.

“It’s okay,” Bart said. “You didn’t mean to.”

Jaime closed his eyes and breathed. The air was cold.

“I didn’t do this.”

“You did this,” said Bart.

“No,” said Jaime. He opened his eyes and looked down at Bart. It wasn’t Bart at all. “I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t hurt you.”

Bart smiled up at him.

“I know you wouldn’t,” he said.

*

“I’m going to tell my family I’m Blue Beetle,” Jaime said to Bart.

They were eating celebratory cheeseburgers on the roof of one of Metropolis’ taller skyscrapers. Toyman had gone down hard, but Toyman always went down hard.

“What, they still don’t know?” Bart looked surprised. Possibly it was just because he was opening his mouth as widely as he could to squeeze as much cheeseburger as he could in.

“I don’t have as big a mouth as you do,” said Jaime. “Close your mouth when you chew, ese. I don’t want to see that.”

So Bart chewed dramatically with his mouth open, making sure Jaime could get a truly envious front row view of the mastication process. Jaime covered Bart’s mouth with his hand and pushed him back. Like a reed, Bart swayed back and then forward again. When he came forward, he landed heavily on Jaime’s shoulder.

“So, you’re telling your family,” said Bart. “They going to freak when you tell them?”

Jaime sighed and took a bite from his second burger, mostly so he could think about it. His chest felt tightly bound. What if Milagro ran from him?

“I’m trying not to think about it,” he admitted. “Like—what am I supposed to say? I don’t lie to my parents a lot, but I’ve been lying about this thing for a year.”

“You told me secret identities were important because they help protect your family,” Bart pointed out. He wadded up the yellow wrapper and grabbed another cheeseburger from the bag. If Jaime was planning on eating a third, he needed to pick up the pace. “Why don’t you tell them that?”

“Not like my mom’s gonna go after my dad to get revenge on me,” Jaime said.

Bart squinted one eye up as if in deep contemplation. “So why didn’t you tell them before?”

“I was kind of freaked about it,” he admitted. “I mean—you know, it’s not like I’m Superman or anything. Plus my parents worry about me anyway, so I don’t know, I just figured if I didn’t tell them they wouldn’t have to worry so it’d be easier. For them.” He made to take another bite, hesitated, and then lowered the burger again. “And me.”

“Your parents are cool,” said Bart, shrugging. “I bet they understand.”

Jaime arched his eyebrows. “Yeah? What do you wanna bet?”

“A lifetime supply of me,” said Bart. He threw his arms out wide in his grand, preening _ta-da!_ gesture, the one he used when he was goofing around. “The greatest gift of all!”

Bart had pulled off his goggles and his yellow mask. His eyes closed, as if he were savoring his own presence. The arch of each row of eyelashes showed as little shadows on his cheeks. When he’d thrown out his arms, his hand had brushed Jaime’s shoulder. The joint itched with that brief passing.

“You forget already?” Jaime said. His heart was swollen and sore; it thunked in his chest. “I beat you to Iraq. That means I won that bet.”

Bart opened his eyes and tipped his head back down, though his arms remained up and out. His chest stuck out, too, puffed up.

“What bet?”

“The pleasure of your company,” said Jaime.

“Oh,” said Bart. He lowered his arms. “But that’s different. Not the same bet. This bet’s way better.”

Jaime took a third cheeseburger from the bag. He didn’t unwrap it. Just held it in his hand. He tensed his fingers around it; he needed an anchor.

“I have to tell you something,” said Jaime.

“I already know you’re Blue Beetle,” said Bart.

“I’m sorry,” Jaime said. “For the future you came from. For not stopping the Reach there.”

For just one little heartbeat, Bart’s eyes lowered, and the corners of his mouth went soft; for that heartbeat, he looked into another time, another place. Maybe he was thinking of that other Jaime, the Jaime the Reach had taken and never given back. Jaime thought of him, that Jaime who wasn’t Jaime. The Jaime he might have been, trapped and unable to stop any of the terrible things his body did.

Then Bart looked at Jaime again. Bart’s eyes were pale in the sunlight, clear enough Jaime could make out the ring of yellow around the pupil in each eye. This Bart had a beating heart. This Bart had come back.

“That wasn’t you,” Bart said.

“I know it wasn’t,” Jaime said, and he thought that was true, that he knew it. “But I’m still sorry. And thanks. Thanks for coming back to help me.”

Jaime wanted to look down, to look away; there was something coming up his throat that he didn’t know how to stop, that he didn’t know if he wanted to stop. He didn’t look away. Neither did Bart. Bart was watching Jaime, watching him with those green eyes with the yellow in the middle, watching him like he was waiting for something.

“I know you came back to stop me,” said Jaime, “or stop the Reach from using me, or whatever. Not to be my friend. But thank you.”

Bart’s eyes flickered. He looked down, then up at Jaime again, and Bart was still. His hand was on the roof, next to Jaime’s hand. Bart looked down again, at their hands. Jaime looked down, too. Their fingertips were nearly touching.

“I didn’t know what you’d be like,” Bart said. “I knew you were a hero first; then the Reach turned you. Or maybe you’d always been a spy for the Reach. That was what we figured.”

Now Jaime was waiting. The sun was hot on his face, on his bare arms. The breeze that came across the rooftop was a cooling breeze, though, and it pulled Bart’s hair forward over his temples. Strands of hair curved towards his eyes.

“But you weren’t,” said Bart. “You were just a kid, like me. I didn’t know you’d be that. I thought you’d be, I don’t know, bigger or something. But you weren’t.”

You look taller on TV, Jaime thought. Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear. People sitting next to you are closer.

Jaime lifted his hand, only just, and then he laid his fingers down on top of Bart’s. He thought Bart knew, like he knew, that this was only maybe the third time that Jaime had touched Bart on purpose. Usually it was Bart who touched him.

“There’s something else I want to tell you,” Jaime said.

Bart lifted his face to Jaime. He was looking at this Jaime. He saw this Jaime.

Jaime thought of how furious Bart had been on Jaime’s behalf when he’d found Green Beetle tapped into Jaime’s back. He thought of how he’d screamed inside at Bart that it wasn’t true; he wasn’t off mode. Bart hadn’t heard, no one had heard Jaime, but Bart hadn’t left Jaime, either. He’d stayed. He’d stayed even after Jaime had been freed, really freed, of the Reach, stayed after Bart no longer had a reason to stay by Jaime. No more reason than anyone had to stay by anyone else, except for friendship. Except for love.

The sun was very bright, though clouds were beginning to roll in. It would rain soon in Metropolis. Under Jaime’s fingers, Bart’s hand was warm; his knuckles were knobby; his fingers were thin. Bart’s eyelashes swept over his eyes. Bart was here, right here, with Jaime. He’d chosen to be here with Jaime.

So Jaime chose to take a chance, and leaning forward, he kissed Bart lightly on the lips, and Bart— Well. Bart kissed him, too.  
 

**Author's Note:**

> One note: According to Weisman, after the Runaways dispersed, Asami went home with Tye.


End file.
